This website was created to experiment with code. I have hand-crafted over several years during an exploration and experiments with HTML, CSS, PHP & mySQL for building dynamic content. You can do an amazing amount with just CSS and that is my primary focus if I had to choose. However, having tried various personal blogs and experience with enterprise content management systems, it is time to build one from scratch. As a result, the site often a mess and often no topic is fully implemented. In it’s evolution, it aims to be accessible, though it’s my own playground at the moment and I am not yet trying for visitors. It is intended to be designed for mobile-first, responsive design so that it can be viewed on any device. Admittedly Chrome is my go to browser and I haven’t done much cross-browser testing, focusing mainly on mobile to tablet to desktop viewing.
Kate Broadfield
20+ years delivering digital/software improvements
Kate 2023
Ten products in 20 years
Higher Education Learning Platforms
2023 - 2024: Higher Education Reading Lists +
2018 - 2019: Higher Education assessment SaaS - 1 year
2014 - 2017: Digitisation of prestigious library collections with Arabic and old English technical challenges and OCR innovation - 2 years
Other Products
2021 - 2023: Digital preservation SaaS platform, APIs, Search & Metadata - 1.5 years
My husband Jamie is a retail systems analyst & Excel report writer by day, but by night he becomes super-hobby-coder. I am really proud of him as he has created (and rewritten) an entire Event Management System himself, as both architect & solution designer, and developer, using and learning PHP & mySQL as he goes. Over the years he has graced me with some PHP troubleshooting and support. Thanks!
ForestLytton
What’s in a name?
My husband Jamie and I met online through live music. I had collaborated with developers to design and build a 3D virtual "venue", kit it out with streaming devices, gadget integrations, hired talent & support staff, and marketed the events. Meanwhile over in the UK, Jamie was also learning about some of the British musicians I had hired. He read a book about the first metaverse, a virtual world called Second Life where musicians could live stream their song and instruments to an audience.
Our paths crossed. We knew each other casually about a year when I noticed he upgraded his avatar. Sensing something was up, I invited him on an in-world dance date and fast-forward, he was flying to NYC where I picked him up for an evening in a real life jazz bar. A year later to the day, we tied the knot!
But what's in a name? Somewhere in the middle, of this story, around about June, our avatars started planning an online wedding event. Jamie suggested we merge our avatar surnames so Forestwalker & Lytton became ForestLytton. It stuck. So did we :-)
Accessibility
This site includes a few techniques towards being accessible to a larger audience. Just a few of these are:
”Information, structure, and relationships conveyed through presentation can be programmatically determined or are available in text.”WCSG 1.3.1) HTML 5 introduces new meaningful tags such as header, article, section, table, and form. Using these tags improves your accessibility.
From section 2.4.4.: One can tell the purpose of a link without reading the surrounding text! we never use ‘click here’ as link text. Oh the horror!! This one is as old as the web itself. Or at least back to early 2000s. Push yourself harder if you struggle.
HTML and text not reliant on images: headings are all in text including the site title. (WCAG 1.1 Perceivable)
Info and relationships: the HTML Markup is semantic and can be read programmatically
mobile-first design: the layout is designed for mobile devices first. if larger devices are used to access the content it will spread or be added to fill the available space.
cleaner HTML markup using grids for layout
Orientation (WCAG 1.3.4) is not limited to portrait for landscape so is available as user chooses to read it.
1.4.4.Resizing text is allowed by way of using relative sizing vs explicit sizes. My design does not assume the quality of your eye sight for example.
images are not the sole communication, for example, titles are in text and photos have alt text descriptions.
devices: visitors do not need mouse or keyboard to navigate. Either keyboard or voice readers work.
Forest Lytton
